The Mystery Of Lydia Deetz
by Valentine Meikin
Summary: There's a problem in the Afterlife Affairs Office. On one hand, Beetlejuice is looking at losing everything for how much he broke the law handling the Maitlands. However, there's one problem. The alternative is that he was completely and utterly successful in everything he did, and that's even more worrying... [Movieverse, may involve Cartoonverse later]
1. One Moment

**Beetlejuice (or Betelgeuse for all those pedantic types) and all related characters (C) Tim Burton**

**Monkeybone and all unique references (C) Henry Selick**

**Dark City and any related references (C) Kaja Blackley**

**These properties are used without permission from their creators, and I claim no reasonable profit from them.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE - I am only referencing Monkeybone, which was derived from Dark City's premise, due to Down Town's movieverse depiction being very similar in feel to the Neitherworld of the animated Beetlejuice world. No characters or locations will appear in this story in it's current form.**

**CHAPTER ONE - One Moment**

"Will Mr. Geuse please report to Juno's office..." The intercom announced.

"It's not my turn!" Beetlejuice snapped, before half-rambling, "I am number... Umpteen quadrillion, several trillion, a few billion, a million or so..."

"NOW." The intercom snapped back, Miss Argentina looking confused as he handed her the impossibly long number, which she just rolled back up onto a spindle, ready for when he presumably came back. He headed into the main part of the bureaucratic nightmare known according to the directory as the Afterlife Affairs Department, but by the already suicidal as Office Hell.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking, but he found himself stood in front of Juno a lot faster than he was sure was possible. "Mr. Geuse, You don't mind if I call you that?" Juno purred, looking like the cat that had ripped someone's prize canary to shreds for it's dinner and everyone thought it had escaped.

"No... So, When's the exorcism?" He asked, knowing of only one reason Juno would look so damn smug, "I fucked up, I broke half the rules in the book, even a few that haven't been ratified yet..."

"If what I hear in the next 24 hours is right, You're getting worse than exorcism. If what I hear is what I expect, Never." Juno declared in her sternest tone, "You have at least three different departments I know of going over the Maitland situation with a fine tooth comb, and both your file and the file of Lydia Deetz are currently being copied and distributed to the same departments, and only they get a look until it's done..."

"Wait, Wait, Wait... Why are they studying her file?" Beetlejuice asked, "She did nothing wrong..."

"Oh, that's exactly why they're studying her file just as much as your recent actions... From what I can tell, she'd have been a shoe-in for Afterlife Affairs within the year..." Juno began, before, slowly enunciating each following word, she growled, "Something... changed... everything..."

"You're seriously saying I did something to stop Little Miss Suicide Pact from offing herself?" Beetlejuice stated, before something she said earlier hit him like a ton of bricks, "Oh god, The contract..."

"You made a deal, which, and Internal Affairs are really wondering how, was signed off and filed in both of your files, where you would protect the Maitlands in exchange for..." Juno declared, almost in a bored tone, pausing, before she finished, her tone now acidic, "Well, I think you know why I'm pissed."

"She backed out on it, she wasn't interested and I'd broke my end of the bargain anyway. The Maitlands were put at risk, I fucked up, end of story, I'm getting exorcised for breach of contract." Beetlejuice stated firmly.

"Here's the problem, Mr. Geuse..." Juno declared, "The Marriages department is split on one thing... The priest you summoned, yes, he said there were some issues, you might have to pay a fine for those, but he cannot for the death of him be completely and utterly sure that you AREN'T married."

Beetlejuice looked stunned. "Wait wait wait..." Beetlejuice began.

"If that priest finally gets his brain in gear and signs off on the marriage contract as unfulfilled, you get sent down... Way down..." Juno stated, smirking.

"Down Town." Beetlejuice groaned, "Purgatory for the already dead."

"They have a plot all set out for you, as part of Ms. Deetz's psyche." Juno gleefully declared, "Your bio-exorcism gig is over. The Maitlands will happily sign off on you overstepping your bounds, and that's the end of that..."

"But, if the priest signs it as a legal and legitimate marriage?" Beetlejuice asked, hopeful.

"Your crimes are erased, your record is cleaned, you get one of the cushiest payoffs ever." Juno growled, "Right now, you are NOT in breach of the deal with Ms. Deetz, since the exorcism you nearly failed to stop was outside of your control. You know the real reason why you wanted to marry her, and you get it, the whole thing..."

If a ghost could look any more rigid than rigor mortis, that was how Beetlejuice was right now. On one hand, he was looking at making a contract with a living person, attempted marriage of a living person, several breaches of his bio-exorcism contract, which he'd barely read after it was drawn up by a particularly sleazy lawyer, and several other things which, added up, would result in him being lodged in a deep, dark part of Lydia's psyche, easily mistaken for a memory of when he was around.

On the other, he was looking at his file being effectively ripped up and started over. He wouldn't necessarily be resurrected, that would depend on how they interpreted things after the paperwork got out of it's log jam, but he'd have got away with everything he did there.

"One question - Why are they even going along with checking?" Beetlejuice asked.

"That's the thing... They've studied the deal, it should have run up a red flag and got you exorcised or worse just for planning such a thing... but it got approved as legal." Juno explained, "Now, Before you can go, Have you ever haunted or had a bio-exorcism job anywhere near a member of Lydia Deetz's family to the best of your knowledge?"


	2. Everything Goes To Hell

**Author's Note - This is a incredibly easy story to make work with canon. Well, Anyone who remembers the wedding scene in Beetlejuice, the whole collapse of the wedding at the last minute could easily have some items missed in all the chaos.**

**Author's Note 2 - This works with the movieverse more than the cartoon, but can link the two together. Notably, In this story's timeline, there won't be just one year between the end of the movie and the beginning of the cartoon.  
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**ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER - Sailor Moon (C) Copyright Naoko Takeuchi. I'm only borrowing Hotaru since she ticks two needed boxes for Betelgeuse's world.**

**CHAPTER TWO - Everything Goes To Hell**

"No." Beetlejuice replied, Juno noting something on a form.

"Was there any reason you requested the deal?" Juno asked.

"She saw me." Beetlejuice continued, only to hear the pen snap, Juno looking at him intently.

"Repeat that." Juno stated, turning on a reel-to-reel.

"The kid saw me on a model the Maitlands had made of the town, we got talking, she wanted in, I wanted out, we made the deal..." Beetlejuice began, only to notice that Juno was not smoking, or doing anything really beyond slowly stopping the recording.

"Mr. Geuse, there's a law against lying to the caseworkers." Juno stated, "No living person would want to visit the afterlife to the point where she'd give a ghost a free trip to unrestricted access to the living world."

"I know, I know." Beetlejuice sighed, before, in a firm tone, he declared, "You can strike me down with a sandworm if I'm lying to you."

She knew how Beetlejuice's powers worked. He declared something like that, it happened. Yet, despite the fact he'd effectively called on a sandworm to eat him, he was fine.

"Hell, the little bitch went and ruined a perfectly good prank by banishing me…" Beetlejuice grumbled.

"OK, She didn't just recognise you, she figured you out..." Juno muttered, before pressing her intercom, "Someone send Ms. Tomoe down."

A few minutes later, a dark haired oriental girl arrived, looking annoyed.

"Any particular reason you summoned me?" The girl asked, "I give you tenure, no-one asks questions, I get power over life and death..."

"Yes, yes, we know the contract..." Both Beetlejuice and Juno stated, Juno glaring, before Beetlejuice added, "Researching ways not to get eaten by her little pets."

"Right... Anyway, Several weeks ago, a sandworm was abruptly sent to the home of the Deetz family..." Juno began.

"By Barbara Maitland, who had been sent to Saturn since she was interfering in a completely legal marriage ceremony." The girl stated, dusting her fingers, "Sorry about that, by the way... Personally, I'm hoping they drop the charges."

Juno almost choked on her cigarette. Their leaseholder, the one person who could doom Betelgeuse straight off, just confirmed the ceremony was legitimate.

"OK, Please make sure to notify Internal Affairs, they'll really love you." Juno drawled, before, back to her business-like tone, she continued, "Were any sandworms out of position as of shortly before you arrived?"

"No, all sandworms are accounted for." The girl replied, "Look me up when you've finished with Juno... I can get you and your wife sorted with anything you need without needing to go through Afterlife Affairs."

She then left, and Juno's mood looked even more frosty.

"That girl is the one person you cannot fool, you cannot lie to, the one person who would strike you deader-than-dead in a single stroke... and she thinks you are married." Juno sighed, "Leave through that door, get yourself cleaned up, and we'll summon you as and when your case comes to court."

Beetlejuice looked at her, but she was already getting up to get a new pen after breaking her original one.

* * *

><p>Lydia sighed. They'd had to move to Peaceful Pines, a sister town to Winter River, after several contractors claimed the room where the failed wedding had happened was cursed. Things weren't much different, beyond the lack of the Maitlands, but she was coming to accept it. A voice then coughed behind her, and she turned round, finding herself face-to-face with the unkempt green hair and pallid skin of Beetlejuice.<p>

"Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Be-" She began, for him to cut her off.

"Look, kid. I'm only looking for one thing." Beetlejuice asked, for Lydia to smirk, as she took a drink from a mug next to her, letting her see her fingers clearly...


	3. With This Ring

**Author's Note - This is a incredibly easy story to make work with canon. Well, Anyone who remembers the wedding scene in Beetlejuice, the whole collapse of the wedding at the last minute could easily have some items missed in all the chaos.**

**Author's Note 2 - This works with the movieverse more than the cartoon, but can link the two together. Notably, In this story's timeline, there won't be just one year between the end of the movie and the beginning of the cartoon.  
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**ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER - Sailor Moon (C) Copyright Naoko Takeuchi. I'm only borrowing Hotaru since she ticks two needed boxes for Betelgeuse's world.**

**CHAPTER THREE - With This Ring...**

The light glinted off a familiar ring, Beetlejuice trying to deny that it was there. But Lydia was wearing his ring. The ring that he was sure he'd fumbled when he was hit on the foot with the car Adam Maitland had driven into his foot, The ring that…

"Before you even attempt to go ask them, we had to move out of Winter River to a near-identical town several states away due to several spirit mediums and a priest declaring that the holes you and Barbara left in the main room was unable to be sealed by mortal means… And the repair permit Adam and Barbara filed wouldn't be done until they'd been dead a century at last estimation." Lydia stated sarcastically.

"How so?" Beetlejuice asked, confused as to why the damage hadn't been repaired shortly after

"Since when did you see a night sky in your main room, and have the sounds of people walking upstairs be effectively silent on the floor directly above?" Lydia stated, "My parents moved into Peaceful Pines much earlier than I did, couldn't really cope with the amount of spurious hauntings that happened in the house. Even ghosts gave The Pit a wide berth…"

"The Pit?" Beetlejuice wondered, "As in…"

"The hole you were dragged down into. no-one wanted to touch it, not Afterlife Affairs, not the ghosts who visited me or the Maitlands, not even mortals.

"So, I held up my end of the bargain…" Lydia purred, smirking, "What did the contract say again? You would keep my family from discovering the Maitlands…"

"Look, My ex-boss went over this with me… We can just go up to them…" Beetlejuice began, for Lydia to shake her head, taking out a familiar book, the pages even more yellowed than last time he saw it.

"Let me see… As long as I have this ring, I act as your temporary haunting locus until whatever business you have on this realm is concluded." Lydia dictated, before, closing the book, she amended it with, "Oh yes, and the Maitland house was condemned due to someone thinking that the hole in the main room's floor lead to Hell. I tried to point out it was Saturn, but they gave me a month in a nice hospital. I actually managed to avoid getting a straitjacket…"

"Identical house…" Beetlejuice began.

"Completely different town." Lydia finished, "Thankfully, I'd not yet got fully settled, and the whole chaos with having to move out came while I was causing several shrinks to question when people have near-death experiences before they die."

"So, Why do you still have the ring? The priest didn't complete the final vows…" Beetlejuice began.

"He was one word away from completing the most important part, and we all know how well people's hearing was at that time. I straightened up the ring, It almost wasn't on my finger at all, and thought I was the first person to be married and divorced within the same minute." Lydia finished, "So, Mr. Geuse, Why are you back here?"

"OK, I'll be honest with ya, give it to you straight." Beetlejuice sighed, "Afterworld Affairs says that my half of the agreement is flexible on the fact that particular copy…"

"No, actually, this isn't the Maitlands copy. It's mine." Lydia stated. Beetlejuice waited for the penny to drop.


	4. It has come to my attention

Now, a lot of you might complain that my stories have overly short chapters, are full of irrelevant commentary, and some truly kind souls actually give two bits about whether or not I'll be posting anything else this side of Easter.

Well, the bad news is that I am unlikely to post anything before around April-May area. The worse news is that every story I have will be getting revised.

Most of my stories, I was having problems with subplots that just weren't working out. It's terrible to suffer writer's block, and I moved on from most of my writing projects to think on them. When I come back to it, I'll be taking down most of what's up now, starting each story fresh with a new angle, or much longer chapters.

So, All my stories are, as far as anyone is concerned, completed, until I get the new material ready. In the past, I posted with no usable material ready, and didn't beta my work. That's why I'm not going to post for at least a month. When I've got some nice long story chapters, we'll see what we can do. Until then, I'm making no promises on anything.


End file.
